HOLMAN v. HILTON

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT, DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY

July 9, 1982

Charles C. HOLMAN, Jr., Plaintiff,
v.
Gary J. HILTON, Superintendent, New Jersey State Prison at Trenton; Alan R. Hoffman, Former Superintendent, New Jersey State Prison at Trenton; William Baum, Investigations Officer, New Jersey State Police; Lawrence Ashton, Lieutenant, New Jersey State Prison; James Williams, Lieutenant, New Jersey State Prison at Trenton; individually and in their official capacities, Defendants

The opinion of the court was delivered by: DEBEVOISE

This summary judgment motion presents a challenge to the constitutionality of N.J.S.A. 59:5-3, a New Jersey statute which bars the commencement of any action in the state courts "by or on behalf of a prisoner against a public entity or public employee until such prisoner shall be released from confinement." For the reasons which follow, I conclude that the statute is unconstitutional and will grant judgment in plaintiff's favor.

1. Background

The parties are in agreement upon the facts essential to a resolution of the motion.

Plaintiff, Charles C. Holman, was convicted of murder in the state courts of New Jersey in 1970 and sentenced to a life term of imprisonment. From the time of his conviction until December, 1981, he was incarcerated in various institutions in the New Jersey state prison system.
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On August 2, 1976, while an inmate at Trenton State Prison, plaintiff filed a complaint in replevin in the District Court of Mercer County, New Jersey. Naming several prison officials as defendants, plaintiff sought the return of certain items of impounded personal property or, in the alternative, damages of $ 613. In his state court complaint, plaintiff made the following allegations:

-During the early morning hours of January 20, 1976, following an aborted escape attempt from the prison wing in which he was housed, guards entered the wing, ordered all inmates, including plaintiff, to strip and escorted them to "strip" cells in a separate area of the prison. Prison officials then searched the emptied cells for contraband.

Shortly after plaintiff filed his state court action, the defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that they did not have the property sought to be replevied and that the action for damages was barred by N.J.S.A. 59:5-3.
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The state court granted the defendants' motion and dismissed the action, reasoning as follows:

The Court is satisfied that the alternative relief, that is damages in lieu of possession, is barred by N.J.S.A. 59:5-3.

The sole remaining issue in the case is whether or not there is a genuine issue of fact with regard to the existence, location and possession of the specific items of personal property set forth in the complaint.

Plaintiff alleges that the property was solely in the control of the defendants at the time of its disappearance and the Court accepts this argument. The defendants' affidavits filed in support of the motion to dismiss merely indicate that the defendants do not have any of the items in their possession nor do they know of their whereabouts and to the best of their knowledge they are nowhere under the individual defendant's (sic) control.

The Court accepts the affidavits of the defendants as implying, in view of their positions, that a search of the State Prison has been made and that these articles do not exist on the premises or in the custody of any State Agency, including the state police. The complaint is dismissed and the plaintiff is left to his remedies for damages upon his release from prison.

Subsequent to the dismissal of his state court lawsuit, plaintiff filed two more claims with Trenton State Prison authorities seeking the return of lost, stolen or destroyed property or damages for the value of the property. In 1978, plaintiff petitioned the new Trenton State Prison Superintendent, Gary J. Hilton, for the return of "a substantial amount of property which included shirts, shoes, nylon underwear, (shirts and shorts), and many other items" which had been confiscated from the Sons of Diogenes Jaycees, prison chapter, of which plaintiff was the President. He was not, however, successful in obtaining the return of this property.

In 1978 and 1979, plaintiff submitted a number of claims to Superintendent Hilton and other Trenton State Prison officials seeking reimbursement for personal property which he alleged to have been destroyed in an electrical fire in his Trenton prison cell shortly after his forceable transfer to Rahway State Prison in August, 1977. The items plaintiff sought recovery for on this occasion included many articles of clothing, 4 law books, a dictionary, 10 reading books and 30 cans of food. On March 15, 1979, an officer of the prison issued a written determination that: due to "Holmans (sic) prior knowledge of the impending transfer to Rahway, and his refusal to comply with (an order which included) the packing of his personal property... (t)he Institution will not assume the responsibility for the items alleged to be lost."

On August 13, 1979, plaintiff instituted the present action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Contending that "the lost (sic) and/or destruction of (his) personal property and belongings without due process of law and just compensation violates (his) rights under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments" and that "N.J.S.A. 59:5-3 ... violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments," plaintiff sought, among other relief, a declaratory judgment that "the application and operation of the New Jersey statute in question... violate plaintiffs' (sic) rights under the United States Constitution." By letter dated December 18, 1981, plaintiff indicated his desire to move for summary judgment as to the constitutional validity of N.J.S.A. 59:5-3 alone. Arguments were heard in late April of this year.
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The parties having agreed upon the facts, the matter is now ripe for decision as a matter of law.

2. N.J.S.A. 59:5-3

N.J.S.A. 59:5-3, the full text of which has been set out above at note 3, purports by its terms to bar the filing of any action by a prisoner against a public official or public entity until the prisoner has been released from prison. The legislative "Comment" to the statute, included as a note in the state code, indicates that the statute was passed "in the interest of prison harmony and in order to avoid the erosion of prison discipline as well as to discourage the bringing of frivolous suits and the traditional "outing in court' enjoyed by many inmates in connection therewith."

The legislature responded in 1972 with the New Jersey Tort Claims Act which, in effect, re-established the doctrine of sovereign immunity for public entities generally but created specific exceptions to the immunity doctrine. See N.J.S.A. 59:2-1 and Comment; see also Malloy v. State, supra, at 519, 388 A.2d 622. The key exception, set forth in N.J.S.A. 59:2-2, provides for state liability under a respondeat superior theory:

a. A public entity is liable for injury proximately caused by an act or omission of a public employee within the scope of his employment in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances.

b. A public entity is not liable for an injury resulting from an act or omission of a public employee where the public employee is not liable.

Defendants suggest that the operation of N.J.S.A. 59:5-3 is limited to actions in tort. It is not clear, however, that the statute has such a narrow scope. By its terms, the provision bars the commencement of any action by a prisoner. Aside from N.J.S.A. 59:1-4, which provides that "(n)othing in this act shall affect liability based on contract or the right to obtain relief other than damages against the public entity or one of its employees," there are no express limitations to its reach. N.J.S.A. 59:5-3 could be construed, therefore, to bar claims for damages based upon federal and state statutes as well as claims based in tort.
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3. Equal Protection and Substantive Due Process

Plaintiff challenges the constitutionality of N.J.S.A. 59:5-3 primarily on the ground that it deprives him of equal protection of the laws and denies him "substantive" due process, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
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There are cases which generally support his contention. E.g., Britt v. Suckle, 453 F. Supp. 987, 1002 (E.D.Tex.1978); Thompson v. Bond, 421 F. Supp. 878 (W.D.Mo.1976); Boling v. National Zinc Co., 435 F. Supp. 18 (N.D.Okl.1976). Because the law in this area is unclear, somewhat difficult of application and possibly superseded in the present context by cases more recently decided by the Supreme Court, however, I will not rely upon equal protection or substantive due process to decide this motion.

The Supreme Court has, in the past, employed language which suggests a fairly broad constitutional right of access to the courts. In Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S. Ct. 1491, 52 L. Ed. 2d 72 (1977), for example, the Court observed that "(it) is now established beyond doubt that prisoners have a constitutional right of access to the courts," and held that "the fundamental constitutional right of access to the courts requires prison authorities to assist inmates in the preparation and filing of meaningful legal papers by providing prisoners with adequate law libraries or adequate assistance from persons trained in the law." Id. at 821, 828, 97 S. Ct. at 1494, 1498. In California Motor Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U.S. 508, 92 S. Ct. 609, 30 L. Ed. 2d 642 (1972), the Court noted that "(t)he right of access to the courts is ... but one aspect of the right of petition," protected by the First Amendment. Id. at 510, 92 S. Ct. at 611. A closer examination of the cases, however, suggests that the Court may actually have recognized a right of access to the courts only in limited circumstances.

In Bounds v. Smith, the Supreme Court framed the specific question presented as "whether law libraries or other forms of legal assistance are needed to give prisoners a reasonably adequate opportunity to present claimed violations of fundamental constitutional rights to the courts." Id. 430 U.S. at 825, 97 S. Ct. at 1496. At a later point in the opinion, the Court emphasized that it was "concerned in large part with original actions seeking new trials, release from confinement, or vindication of fundamental civil rights."
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Id. at 827, 97 S. Ct. at 1497. Bounds v. Smith, therefore, may be viewed as recognizing not a general constitutional right of access to the courts for the vindication of all conceivable claims, but only for the vindication of those claims which may be characterized as of "fundamental" significance in the constitutional scheme.
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Such a construction of Bounds would render it consistent with the Supreme Court's earlier statement in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S. Ct. 2963, 41 L. Ed. 2d 935 (1974), that "(t)he right of access to the courts ... is founded in the Due Process Clause and assures that no person will be denied the opportunity to present to the judiciary allegations concerning violations of fundamental constitutional rights." Id. at 579, 94 S. Ct. at 2986.

Of similar import are the "filing fee" cases. See Ortwein v. Schwab, 410 U.S. 656, 93 S. Ct. 1172, 35 L. Ed. 2d 572 (1973); United States v. Kras, 409 U.S. 434, 93 S. Ct. 631, 34 L. Ed. 2d 626 (1973); Boddie v. Connecticut, 401 U.S. 371, 91 S. Ct. 780, 28 L. Ed. 2d 113 (1971). In Boddie, the Supreme Court struck down a $ 50 divorce filing fee as applied to indigent persons, noting that "due process requires, at a minimum, that absent a countervailing state interest of overriding significance, persons forced to settle their claims of right and duty through the judicial process must be given a meaningful opportunity to be heard." Id. at 377, 91 S. Ct. at 785. In Kras and Ortwein, however, the Court upheld similar filing fees, limiting Boddie's application to cases involving fundamental constitutional rights over which state courts have "exclusive" control.
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The rights plaintiff seeks to vindicate in the present case, based upon state tort law, are clearly not "fundamental" rights, nor can they be said to lie within the exclusive control of the state courts. As noted above, the Tort Claims Act provides a mechanism for administrative review of claims and the parties are theoretically free to arrive at a private adjustment or settlement.
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It can be argued with some cogency, therefore, that N.J.S.A. 59:5-3, though it substantially restricts a prisoner's access to the state courts, does not infringe any right which the Supreme Court has deemed to be "fundamental."

Absent a "fundamental" right or suspect classification,
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the state statute must be reviewed, for purposes of both equal protection and substantive due process, under the "rational basis" standard. See Murillo v. Bambrick, 681 F.2d 898 at -- (3d Cir. June 17, 1982). Under this "relatively relaxed" or "minimal scrutiny" test, legislation is upheld if it "(classifies) the persons it affects in a manner rationally related to legitimate governmental objectives." Schweiker v. Wilson, 450 U.S. 221, 230-34, 101 S. Ct. 1074, 1080-82, 67 L. Ed. 2d 186 (1981).

Merely to conclude that a statute is of questionable rationality, however, does not definitively determine whether it survives scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause and the substantive component of the Due Process Clause. The Supreme Court has quite recently emphasized that "(social) and economic legislation ... that does not employ suspect classifications or impinge upon fundamental rights ... carries with it a presumption of rationality that can only be overcome by a clear showing of arbitrariness and irrationality." Hodel v. Indiana, 452 U.S. 314, 101 S. Ct. 2376, 69 L. Ed. 2d 40 (1981); see also Murillo v. Bambrick, supra, at -- , n. 15. In view of this quite relaxed standard, I do not believe that equal protection or substantive due process analysis provides a firm foundation for challenging the constitutionality of N.J.S.A. 59:5-3, and will not rely upon either here.

4. Procedural Due Process

A more secure basis for challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey's statute barring prison inmates' access to the state courts can be found in the Constitutional guarantee of procedural due process. Although our constitutional scheme, as currently interpreted, affords state legislatures a wide-ranging freedom to adopt social and economic measures which, in their view, promote the public welfare, the Constitution nevertheless confers certain specific rights upon individuals which the courts will protect with greater authority against the will of the majority. Among these is the Fourteenth Amendment's mandate that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property" without affording him the minimum procedures necessary "to insure that (such interests) are not arbitrarily abrogated." See Wolff v. McDonnell, supra, 418 U.S. at 557, 94 S. Ct. at 2975.

Liberty and property interests protected under the Fourteenth Amendment may be created by state law. The minimum procedures necessary to protect those interests, however, are determined as a matter of federal constitutional law without deference to any procedural preferences expressed by the state legislature or state courts.
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See generally, Mills v. Rogers, 457 U.S. 291, 102 S. Ct. 2442, 2449, 73 L. Ed. 2d 16, 50 U.S.L.W. 4676, 4679 (June 18, 1982). The nature of the procedures which federal law will require " "depend(s) on appropriate accommodation of the competing interests involved.' .... These include the importance of the private interest and the length or finality of the deprivation ...; the likelihood of governmental error ...; and the magnitude of the governmental interests involved." Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422, 102 S. Ct. 1148, 1157, 71 L. Ed. 2d 265 (1982) (citations omitted); see also Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 96 S. Ct. 893, 47 L. Ed. 2d 18 (1976); Pedersen v. South Williamsport Area School District, 677 F.2d 312 at 316 (3d Cir. 1982).

For the reasons which follow, I conclude that plaintiff's theoretical right to sue the state and state officials for the negligent loss of property, under both the common law and the provisions of the New Jersey Tort Claims Act, constitutes a state-created species of property. Applying federal law, I conclude that N.J.S.A. 59:5-3 deprives him of the minimally adequate procedures necessary to protect that right of action, and therefore violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

In Parratt, a state prison inmate filed suit in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 contending that his property had been "negligently lost by prison officials in violation of his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." Specifically, he claimed that he had been deprived of his property without due process of law. As relief, he sought damages of $ 23.50, the value of the property lost.

Writing for the majority, Justice Rehnquist undertook the following analysis of the case: First, he posed the question whether "mere negligence will support a claim for relief under § 1983," an issue hitherto undecided by the Court. Id. 451 U.S. at 532, 101 S. Ct. at 1911.
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Answering this question in the affirmative, he then inquired whether the officials who allegedly lost the plaintiff's property could be said to have acted "under color of state law." Answering this question in the affirmative as well, he concluded that the plaintiff had been deprived, albeit negligently, of a protected property interest-his hobby kit-under color of state law. He then framed the ultimate question as whether plaintiff had been deprived of his property "without due process of law." Id. 451 U.S. at 537, 101 S. Ct. at 1913.

The thrust of the complaint in Parratt was unquestionably of a substantive nature. The plaintiff contended, in essence, that the very act of the prison officials in losing his property had deprived him of a constitutional right.
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Justice Rehnquist, however, chose utterly to disregard the substantive aspects of the complaint and treated the complaint as a challenge to the procedures available under state law for the redress of negligent deprivations of property. See id. at 552-53, 101 S. Ct. at 1921-22 (Powell, J. concurring). The question to be decided, he stated, was "whether the tort remedies which the State of Nebraska provides as a means of redress for property deprivations satisfy the requirements of procedural due process."
*fn21"
Id. at 537, 101 S. Ct. at 1914.

If one takes the Parratt opinion at face value, it appears to stand for the proposition that states are obligated, as a matter of constitutional law, to provide persons whose property has negligently been lost by state officials with a meaningful postdeprivation remedy. Applying Parratt to the facts here, it is readily apparent that New Jersey does not provide prison inmates with access to a postdeprivation remedy within a meaningful time. Hence, Parratt alone provides a compelling basis for the conclusion that N.J.S.A. 59:5-3 is unconstitutional.

Employing a procedural due process analysis, the Supreme Court reversed.
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As an initial matter, it held that the plaintiff was entitled to the protection of the Due Process Clause because his state-created right of action constituted a "species of property protected by the Fourteenth Amendment." Id., -- - U.S. at -- , 102 S. Ct. at 1154. Such a property right accrues under state law, the Court implied, whenever an aggrieved "claimant has more than an abstract desire or interest in redressing his grievance"-that is, whenever "his right to redress is guaranteed by the State, with the adequacy of his claim assessed under what is, in essence, a "for cause' standard, based upon the substantiality of the evidence." Id. at -- , 102 S. Ct. at 1155.

The Court then quickly disposed of defendant's argument that strict compliance with the 120-day limitation constituted a substantive element of the cause of action for employment discrimination, and that the State, not being required to enact such a statute at all, was entitled to place any conditions on the substantive scope of relief which it chose. "Of course," the Court observed, citing Martinez, supra, "the State remains free to create substantive defenses or immunities for use in adjudication-or to eliminate its statutorily created causes of action altogether-just as it can amend or terminate its welfare or employment programs." Id. Nevertheless, it held, "(t)he 120-day limitation in the FEPA ... involves no such thing. It is a procedural limitation on the claimant's ability to assert his rights, not a substantive element of the FEPA claim." Id.

Whatever future treatment Parratt receives at the hands of the Supreme Court, however, it is apparent that the holding of the case rests on sound doctrinal ground if analyzed in light of the principles articulated in Logan. By the same token, the principles of Logan may appropriately be applied to the facts of the present case.

It is undisputed that plaintiff here has a right of action under state law to sue both public employees and the state itself for negligent loss of property. By virtue of N.J.S.A. 59:5-3, however, he is barred from asserting his cause of action until such time as he is released from institutional confinement.

N.J.S.A. 59:5-3 cannot be defended on the ground that it constitutes a substantive component of a New Jersey prisoner's right to sue the state. See Logan, supra, -- - U.S. at -- , 102 S. Ct. at 1156; Martinez v. California, supra. The statutory provision does not affect the scope of the inmate's right of recovery in any fashion whatsoever. Rather, it controls the time and manner in which an inmate is permitted to bring his claims to the attention of the court and obtain a hearing. As such, it must be viewed as a procedural provision which falls squarely within the ambit of the Due Process Clause.
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The Court will enter its own order implementing the rulings of this opinion. Should defendants wish to have prompt appellate review of this determination, I would entertain an application under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). See Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Wetzel, 424 U.S. 737, 96 S. Ct. 1202, 47 L. Ed. 2d 435 (1976).

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